Six Degrees of Separation

[Daveparts still]

Six Degrees of Separation
By David Glenn Cox

Little more than a year ago he was treated by the German public as a rock star. But that was then and this is now, and now his star has fallen. He once claimed himself a citizen of the world, but now, a little more than one year later, Barack Obama is accused of being no better than George W. Bush. From an editorial in the German magazine Der Speigel:

“Only if the US manages to reduce its excessive energy consumption, commit itself to mandatory CO2 emission reduction targets, and help finance poorer countries’ move away from oil is there still a chance that countries like China and India will do the same and that a dangerous warming of the Earth can be stopped. On the weekend, Obama announced that there would be no agreement on binding rules in Copenhagen. It was the admission of a massive failing—and the prelude to a truly dramatic phase of international climate policy.”

In the President’s defense the editorial takes a long, loving look back to the United States of a generation ago, back to the days of John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. To an America with unlimited resources that could make declarations and with the stroke of a pen write checks to make them happen. That America no longer exists; this new America debates whether it can supply basic healthcare to its own citizens.

This new America can’t provide a Berlin Airlift for New Orleans or Detroit, and what’s more it won’t even make the effort. Ten million homes foreclosed, forty million evicted, 17.5% unemployment, and the Germans want Obama to stand his ground and take the lead on climate change? Don’t they know that tens of millions of Americans don’t even believe in climate change? They are still fighting Darwin and planning a trip to take the kids to see the Creationism Museum.

Many live under this mind set that science is attacking their old-timey religion and that freedom means freedom from government regulation and freedom to exploit the earth and all its raw materials, 'cause God says it will be OK. Under their anti-scientific method the world’s climate scientists meet in Dracula’s castle high in the Carpathian Mountains to scheme up ways to tax and defraud the world’s citizens.

These scientists are the harbingers of doom so that they, the scientists, can personally profit from evidence of global climate change. These Americans chant “Drill, baby, drill!” and spit out the name of Al Gore like an expletive. This is all his fault, this evil head of the evil cabal of knowitty-all scientists, trying to rob hard-working Americans of their freedom and their coin. It is so embarrassing that it is almost fortunate that the Europeans are so clueless about the American mind set.

Two years ago the United Nation's International Panel on climate change issued a report forecasting an increase in global temperatures by the end of the century of between 1.8C and 4C, depending on the world’s success in controlling carbon emissions. Between the year 2000 and the year 2008, the Greenland ice sheet has lost 1,500 gigatons of ice, and a gigaton is one of them fancy sciencey words meaning one billion tons. Them knowitty-all scientists estimate that the rate of ice loss is increasing, but the Bible don’t say nothing about it.

Besides, they argue, it’s sun spots, it's a natural cycle; the Earth’s not getting warmer, it’s getting colder. Why, that climate scientist what works for Exxon that was on Fox News said so.

Global temperatures rising 1.8 degrees to 4 degrees would be disastrous, but the world civilizations would probably survive depending on the severity. But a new report, which uses the same models used in the UN report, forecasts a temperature increase of 6 degrees Celsius for the global climate. This is no different than the Earth being in the path of a giant asteroid, except that we can do something about it. Six degrees is non-survivable.

Between 1990 and the year 2000, the average annual increase in carbon emissions was one percent, but between 2000 and 2008, carbon emissions increased by three percent on average per year. The Peoples Republic of China has become the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases. The German populace put their faith in President Obama that he can dissuade China from the course that she is on. The problem for us all is that if Obama could somehow manage to convince the Chinese government, how could he convince the American government. If we can’t overcome the petty tyrants of the health insurance industry, what realistic chance would we have with the real bully boys in the fossil fuels industry?

But it is the conjunction of forces that is pushing us toward the brink of oblivion. CO2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuels have increased by 41 per cent between 1990 and 2008. During that time deforestation has increased, meaning that not only are carbon emissions higher but the Earth’s ability to cope with them is reduced. There is also evidence that man-made carbon is remaining in the atmosphere longer because the Earth’s carbon sinks are beginning to fail. The amount of CO2 that has remained in the atmosphere as a result has increased from about 40 per cent in 1990 to 45 per cent in 2008.

If that proves to be correct it could be that a carbon-cycle climate feedback has already begun. It will have a multiplier effect, as the planet can no longer absorb the amounts of carbon that it once could accept. Then, indeed, we are headed for six degrees of separation. Large areas of the Earth's surface will no longer be fit for habitation. The Sahara Desert will expand into Spain; world food supplies will crash as midwestern farmland takes on the look of west Texas. Florida will cease to exist as will New Orleans and Houston.

The world seems headed for a hot house environment not seen since the age of dinosaurs over a hundred million years ago. Mankind will be reduced to tribes, scratching in the dirt and looking for grubs under rocks, fading away not with a bang but with a whimper. But it could all be wrong, it might be that the Earth is only seven thousand years old and man once walked with dinosaurs, but Noah had no room for them on the Ark.

Jesus loves me, this I know,
For the Bible tells me so.

[daleanime]

1. Just means...

that they go to heaven a little quicker. Big:sarcasm: (Just in case.)

[Daveparts still]

2. While Researching this

I came across the following passage,

How do the beasts groan! the herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture; yea, the flocks of sheep are made desolate. O LORD, to thee will I cry: for the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame hath burned all the trees of the field. The beasts of the field cry also unto thee: for the rivers of waters are dried up, and the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness." Joel 1:18-20